


The Thing That Happened

by Alex_deMorra (Ergo_Sum)



Series: Fence Sitter [16]
Category: Original Work
Genre: False Accusations, Gymnastics, M/M, Sexual Assault of a Minor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 00:07:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9295601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ergo_Sum/pseuds/Alex_deMorra
Summary: Chapter 16 - Fence SitterFifteen-year-old Micah is getting on with his new life at his new school and doing his best to get a new start. More than that, his hard work with gymnastics is finally getting him to a level of recognition where he is earning medals and attracting sponsors that will allow him to start competing at international meets.There is someone in a position of trust that should be watching out for Micah's best interest. When their motivations play out, Micah's world turns upside down again.





	1. Chapter 1

I first held hands with Rosalie Drummond following the medals ceremony at the Regionals event that occurred nine months after Tyrell and I rang in the year at his house, six months after we stopped speaking, three months since I started at my new school, and two months since I started hovering around the _capoeiristas_ , who simultaneously excited and terrified me with their dare-devil dramatics and who I would probably hang out with a lot more if Rory Evans wasn’t part of their crew. And there was that thing with dad. Early in the year, he was back. Then, he moved right back out again. I couldn’t put a date on any of that because his presence was one long smear of uncertainty.

To say this year has brought change was an understatement. But to say that people like Rosalie Drummond made my life better was not.

Rosalie’s team was from Central California — over six hours away by car. We saw each other every three to four weeks when our respective teams showed up at the same competitions. She had light, bright orange hair that she _hated_ , light blue eyes that she described as transparent enough to see her brains, and because she no longer had braces, she continuously licked her teeth and made bizarre faces to show them off.

We met at my first competition with the Comets (aka Coach Nick’s team). At the time, she was eleven and I was twelve. We’ve each had two birthdays since then.

She liked hanging out with me to escape the older kids on her team that thought they were cool but, in reality, they were just bossy. I liked hanging out with her because nothing about what everyone else seemed to care about mattered to her. Now, we sought each other out as soon as we got to the venue, and hung around as much as we could until we were transported home in opposite directions.

Which was about ten minutes from happening again.

Rosalie and I were hanging out, showing off our respective medals to each other. I had made it to the podium twice (once for the rings, once for the horizontal bar); she made it to the podium once for her floor exercise. In all three instances, we stood on the last possible step — the 6th one.

“You know that makes us?” she tittered excitedly with her nose wrinkled up.

“No…what?”

She wailed theatrically, jumped into a lunge with her arm flailing in a big circle,and her voice rang out in a manner befitting a heavy metal group that had just filled an arena with lyrics that I had never heard before. _“666 the number of the Beast…Hell and fire was spawned to be released…”_ And when she saw my face, she busted into a maniacal laugh that was so out of character that I had no choice but to join her.

“What was _that_?” I asked.

“That was my rendition of the best band ever invented: Iron Maiden,” she said in triumph.

I checked her, “You are so random. The last time I saw you, you said Mariah Carey was the best.”

She put a hand over her heart and looked up at the heavens (okay, it was the ceiling) and proclaimed, “No one is better than Mariah.” Then she snapped her head to face me to squint and threaten me, “You better not be dissing Mariah.”

My hands automatically went up in the universal sign for _I surrender_ — that is — arms out, bent at right angles, palms open and facing the imminent threat. “I’m not, I swear. You’re the one that said Iron Maiden was the best.”

“The best _band_ , Micah. The best band. This is what you need to get right. Mariah is the best _everything_.”

“Got it,” I conceded, still laughing, “I’m informed now.”

Rosalie was still waving her hands about explaining the difference when at some point her hand came into contact with mine. I grabbed it. She looked our hands after I wrapped my fingers around hers, looked up at me, and blushed.

“Is it okay?”

“Yeah,” she nodded and scrunched her shoulder up to her ear. It was cute. She was cute. Really cute. Like I couldn’t stop smiling around her kind of cute.

More than that.

Between my action, her response, and the cumulative effect of the two, the whole thing made me feel unbelievably, undeniably _normal_. I felt that I had trespassed from a world in which nothing was okay — and would never be okay again — to a world where it was okay to smile and laugh and show my face and breathe without feeling like I had a family of elephants standing on my chest.

Rosalie and I wrote each other almost every day after that. Correction. She wrote me every day and I wrote her on school days from the library right before I left for my workout.

_Where_ I worked out depended on which day it was.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays (and some Saturdays), I rode my bike to the community center where I would work with Coach Bryan for a private session, help him teach the younger kids, and either do a strength workout or go to capoeira.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Coach Bryan picked me up to go to the gym center up north for a three-hour team workout followed by Coach Bryan giving a private lesson to someone else while I did my work-in-trade-for-gym-fees. By half-past eight, or nine o’clock at the latest, we left and he took me home.

At either place, there wasn’t time socialize. I got to know my teammates by what and how they practiced. They did the same for me.

So, it was a surprise when Joe Sidran found me after our workout to ask, “Who was that girl you were with?”

“Uh,” I started to answer and scoped the gym space close to us to see if there was someone, in particular he was referring to. No one stood out. “When?”

“At Regionals. You know, the redhead.”

“Oh. That’s Rosalie,” I said with a shrug. Like it was no big deal. But it was totally a big deal. In fact, it was such a big deal that I didn’t want anybody to know exactly how big of a deal it was.

“That’s cool. I just didn’t think you liked girls,” he began.

“Why would you think that?” I demanded. The suggestion — or maybe just my response to it — felt shivery and slithery as it snaked up my back and around my arms. Where did that come from? No one else had said anything like that since I had changed schools.

“I was just curious, I guess. I didn’t mean anything bad by it,” he said in a way that struck me as offensively casual. Especially because the whole thing was _behind me_.

“Then why did you bring it up?” I accused him.

“I guess…because…I just wanted to say maybe some people understand more it looks like they do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that are a lot of people watching us — coaches… parents… judges… teachers…teammates. It’s hard sometimes to connect with someone who understands. That’s all,” Joe reckoned and gave me a confidential wink before he walked away.

_He knows nothing_ , I told myself.

Still, I kept my guard up.

Joe was friendlier after that. Slowly, he worked to get to know me. What I liked to do. What I listened to. That sort of thing. But he didn’t bring up Rosalie again until two months later at his sixteenth birthday, which was hosted by our head coach and his wife as many of our team events are.

I remained wary of Coach Nick and definitely can’t say that I’ve warmed up to the man — but the back yard of his house (where all the parties are held) was pretty amazing. And huge. The lawn was large enough to kick a soccer ball around _and_ the swimming pool had a diving board on one end and a jacuzzi along one side. Plus there were these amazing sounding speakers hung on the posts of the wooden patio.

After all that, there was still room for the taco truck that he brought in that — get this — came with its own _tortilleria_. Now, _that_ was something special.

The only way to improve on the small piece of heaven better known as a freshly charred corn tortilla is to stuff it with some combination of _carne asada_ , _carnitas_ , _pollo_ , or _al pastor_ to be topped with _guacamole_ and served with _horchata_ , _jamaica_ , or (my favorite) _tamarindo_ over crushed ice and probably in a white styrofoam cup too big for any normal person’s hand to fit around. 

We ate like pigs. Or kings. Or pig-kings. Call it what you will, we were stuffed and weren’t allowed to go back in the pool for an hour.

As we digested, we gathered around Joe, who opened his presents. And because he — like me — like Kelly — was a sponsored member of the club and not a paying member of the club, everyone here knew that he didn’t have jack shit at home.

Which also meant he hated opening presents in front of everyone for the same reason that I did. Inside every box, no matter how nicely it was wrapped, was a little piece of charity. The presents weren’t even that different from what everyone else got. It was the vibe that made it another thing altogether.

Same thing happened when any of the three of us gave someone a present. _Oh, my god, you didn’t have to get me something so nice_ , they’d say…for an extra roll or two of grip tape. I wonder what I would get for a pack of shitty donuts and some bubblegum? _Wow…this really…this means a lot…I’ll treasure it always._ Then I’d imagine how Julia Natale might make earrings out of two of the powdered sugar hoops so that white specs would fall like dandruff all over her shoulders.

Joe picked up my present.

Then he looked at me.

He read my note and gave me a half-smile and a chuckle. If we weren’t surrounded my parents he might have flipped me off, which I would have approved of. Instead, he read my note to everyone:

_To Joe. The guy who has everything…_

Then he held up my gift: A bar of Irish Spring and a box of Altoids.

The rest of the room was filled with crickets.

Until Garrett’s dad outright guffawed; he followed by a few others. Some shared out the punch line, “It’s a joke, dude. Body Odor. Bad Breath. Get it?”

Okay…that was part of it but they wouldn’t understand the other part of the joke. It wasn’t for them anyway; it was for Joe. And I could tell he got what I was trying to say - _Yeah, it’s hard to connect with someone who understands._ In other words, a person didn’t have to have BO or bad breath to be treated the way we did.

“So, how’s red?” Joe asked when he found me later.

I wrinkled my nose in confusion, “Who?”

“Your girlfriend.”

“Oh.” I smiled. We still wrote all the time but when I saw her at the last meet, she told me about this guy Troy who was in her class. What could I say? She saw me once a month and him everyday at school. “We’re mostly friends.”

“Mostly?”

“Yeah,” I said, without needing to explain how I might have held out hope for the future, “Mostly.”

“We should hang out.”

“Hang out…like…”

“Hang out,” Joe drawled and lowered his eyelids to look at my mouth, as if that clarified everything.


	2. Chapter 2

Eventually, it became clear. _Let’s go hangout_ meant _let’s make out in the locker room_ or _let’s feel each other up_ _in one of the offices_ or _let’s pin each other to the wall at that place behind the building that’s beyond the reach of streetlights_.

A few months later, Joe came up behind me, grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me around the corner. He had a pair of keys in his hand. “Dude, look what I scored.”

“What is it?”

“I’ll show you. Follow me,” he turned and walked to the locker rooms. Once inside, he used one key to open the storage cabinet. He pulled me inside, turned on the light, closed the door behind us, flipped the deadbolt, rolled the double-stacked clothes rack to the left and revealed a second door, which he proceeded to use the second key to unlock. On the other side was a room.

A bedroom.

I didn’t mean a dinky room with a single hanging light bulb and a cot. It was a full-on, carpet on the floor, desk with a lamp on it, TV mounted on the wall, cabinet for clothes, bed big enough for two people, honest-to-god bedroom.

This room was hidden behind the storage cabinet inside the locker room of a gymnasium and, in my opinion, very _Creepshow_ meets _The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe_.

“What is this place?”

“My hideout. Do you like it?”

I couldn’t wrap my head around the situation fast enough to know if I liked it or not.

He continued, “Nick hooked me up. I’ve been having a hard time getting out of here in time to get home and the gym is closer to school so…he gave me an emergency spot I can stay whenever I need to.”

It seemed wrong. Cool. But wrong.

“Come on, Micah. Sit down,” said Joe, bouncing on the side of the bed.

I did.

We messed around for a bit.

Got each other off.

All of a sudden, I had this feeling — this weird, creepy, uncomfortable feeling — and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. “Joe, dude - this is great and everything but I gotta jet.” I pulled my pants up and raced for the exit.

He was right behind me as I opened one door, then the other and then left the locker room only to run right into Coach Bryan, who looked perplexed. “I was just in there. Where were you?”

“Dunno know you could miss me,” I lied easily. “I was just helping Joe with something in the supply cabinet. He had to move one of the racks and he couldn’t do it by himself.”

“Right. Huh. Okay, well, it’s time to leave.”

I grabbed my bag and left for the night. Though I left, my thoughts of that room didn’t. It haunted me and I couldn’t figure out why. In my dreams, it turned into an elaborate prison where the wall transformed into heavy, metal bars and on the other side, there was a swarm of people that reached in and tried to touch me.

The next time Joe mentioned hanging out in his secret room again, I begged off.

Then I did it again.

And the next time.

The time after that he asked me straight up what was going on. “Did I do something wrong?” He asked.

I shook my head. “That room creeps me out.”

Joe looked at me like I was nuts or something, “Are you kidding me? That room is the bomb.”

“I’m not going back in there.”

He was silent for a few minutes and looked upset like I had insulted him or something.

“I like you, Joe. It’s nice to be doing…whatever we’re doing. But the feeling I got when I went in there…I dunno. That room is something I would expect to see in a horror flick, not in real life.” I didn’t mean to insult him or anything and tried making it better with a clearer explanation. “It’s a nice room but there’s something about it that made me think it could be a place that pervy old guys would set up to cheat on their wives or something. Like…what if Nick is in there banging someone while you’re at school?”

Joe crossed his arms with his eyebrows all scrunched up together and glared at me.

I went on, “Or worse. I don’t know. Think of all the things that could go wrong. Like what if there was a fire and no one knew you were here. Huh? Or…shit…,” I swallowed, done with avoiding the thing that really freaked me out about that place, “what if you got trapped in there — like someone trapped you there — how would anyone know?”

“Tsch. Jeez, I didn’t know you were so paranoid, Micah. For a start, you know it’s there. Nick knows it’s there and if Nick knows, Jeannie’s got to know.”

Unfair or not, my first thought was  _but what if it was them that trapped you?_

Then I felt guilty.

They’ve never been anything but totally generous with me and after that one day with Nick, he never did anything like that again. He’s been hands-off, super cool. And me? I’ve kept on taking Coach Bryan’s advice and made sure that I was never alone with him.

Just in case.

“Micah, please don’t say anything to anyone.”

“Why?”

“ _Please,_ man _._ This is a good thing I’ve got going here.”

“But why would it matter if someone else knew?”

“Because he did me a huge favor, alright?”

I’d be such a hypocrite if I told him I didn’t know where he was coming from. Things weren’t so bad at home right now but there have been plenty of times when they were. Any of those times would have had me begging for a place to chill while the world went by. “On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

My sleep has been messed up just knowing about the existence of place. It was worse to worry about someone I actually knew being here and possibly not being okay. Here was my demand, “I want an e-mail every night to say where you are and I want another one in the morning when you get up.”

“Wow.”

“What does that mean? _Wow_. Just say yes and then do it,” I persisted.

“I can’t tell if that’s a threat or —”

“Tell me you wouldn’t feel safer with someone knowing where you were.”

“What if I miss sending you the message?”

“I’m going to call you.”

“And if I don’t pick up?”

“I’m calling the cops.”

“You’re calling the cops…”

“That’s the deal. I tell someone now — Coach Bryan, probably — and he does whatever he’s got to do. Or, you send me messages every single day to let me know you’re okay.”

“What if I’m grounded?”

“Then tell your mom you’ve got to get a message to me to let me know you’re grounded. Tell her we’ve got plans or something and if you don’t call, I’ll be on a bus in the middle of nowhere or something. You’re a smart guy so figure it out. Deal?”

He regarded me for a few moments before he answered, “Deal.” Then he asked, “So we can go back to hanging out?”

“Sure.”

It went like that. I got two messages every day. Most days they were brief:

_10:15pm — at the gym tonight. ‘Night._

_7:50am — at school._

Sometimes they were longer. Over several months, he told me stories about his family and the friends he left behind. More than anything else, he told me about Sarajevo, his hometown, and how he hardly recognized it before he left.

_There’s nothing like it here. Not even in the movies. Entire blocks of houses riddled with bullet holes. Then you pass one with a hole big enough to walk through and inside, all you could see was black. A black thing that used to be a table. Or a wall. Or a person. Or there might be a matching hole on the other side so that you could see a field with weeds framed by the ruins of someone’s old home._

Or —

_Micah, I remember this one time that I turned a corner and saw a guy lying in the gutter as he got shot. That was the thing. You didn’t have to be a soldier. They went after everyone - men, women, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, kids._

Or —

_The National Library was so beautiful. It had these majestic archways and the smell…it was like to smell the place made you smarter. Now it’s just a fucking hill of broken blocks._

He got mad at me when I asked whether the Bosnian war was part of the Gulf War.

_Are you kidding me? Over a hundred thousand people died. In Bosnia. Europe. Not the Middle East. How could you not know about it? There were over two million refugees that left because it got so bad. You should know about it, man. Everyone should._

Joe (He didn’t like to be called Josef.) came over in 1993 with his mom. He had an aunt from his dad’s side somewhere in Canada and an uncle from his mom’s side that went to Germany but has since moved back. They sent pictures of where their house used to be.

His dad died. I didn’t know the details. He wouldn’t talk about it. Maybe he didn’t know?

Joe preferred to talk about how things got better once he was here. Like how the US Gymnastics Federation passed on his message for help and how Nick was the one who stepped in and sponsored him — with a visa and a job for his mom and everything — so that he and his mom could make a home here.

_I would be nothing without that guy, okay? So…I’m sorry you have this feeling towards him but I owe him my life. I would do anything for him._

After a while, he and I got to be…kinda close, I guess. We’d work, hang out for a few minutes, and get back to work. No one noticed us slacking off. We were always careful. If one of us dated someone else for a while, we stopped. No big deal. When it ended (it always did), we picked up again.

Before I knew it, Regionals were up again.

This year, Nick stepped it up got a team bus and hotel arrangements. Joe and I were roomies. He pulled me aside as soon as we found out and asked in a hushed voice, “Dude…are we gonna…”

“Do it?”

We’d talked about it. Both of us had been with girls but never _with_ a guy. Kissing? Yes. Hand job? Yes. Blow job? A couple of times. But _all the way_? We wanted to. I was nervous about it. The what-went-where part of it was pretty self-explanatory. But also, it was nerve-wracking because, well,everyone knew what was involved with girl sex because teachers basically told you all about it from the time we were in sixth grade. This, though. It was going to be different.

We were on our own.

And we didn’t want our first time to be so rushed that we’d have to get through it in the five minutes we stole from somewhere. So this out-of-town competition would be the best opportunity we’d get in a while.

“It has to be on the last night,” he said.

Obviously. Neither one of us was prepared to try _that_ the night before the biggest meet of the year. I couldn’t imagine having to explain why my performance was _off_ for no apparent reason.

“And we need condoms,” I said.

The list of needs was not all that long: bed, privacy, condoms, time. Two of those were easy; the other two were not. If it was just me and Joe in the room, it wouldn’t be an issue. But each room would have four people and one of these was a chaperone. In this case, that meant we’d be joined by Garrett and his dad.

“So, how’s this going to work?” I asked.

“There’s free time before dinner. Garrett will want to spend time with Julia for sure so he won’t be there. And since Garrett’s mom is chaperoning for the girls, I bet that Garrett’s dad will want to hang out with her for the break. I’ll ask on the sly. You say you need a nap or something. I’ll come up when I know the coast is clear.”

“Why don’t I make sure the coast is clear,” I suggest.

“Because I’m the one who can ask Nick about the plans without him being suspicious.”

“Yeah, okay. But look. If anything — and I mean _anything_ — isn’t going to plan, we cancel. Too much is at risk if we get caught.”

“Agreed.”

That was a no-brainer. If one of us was caught, we were both caught. And as uncool as it was in school to be labeled as a queer, it was worse on the circuit. No one did it.

No one.

I almost called our plan off a million times. The risk was too great. Then again, there wasn’t anyone else lined up to do this with and…well…it was sex. Why should I wait? Oh yeah. The risk. This cycle of reasoning went round and round and wore a path through the center my head. I couldn’t come up with anything better that what Joe and I had already agreed on.

Competition day arrived.

It was amazing.

I won silver for horizontal bar, bronze for the rings and just missed getting on the podium for my floor exercise. Garrett pulled bronze for the vault and Joe pulled fourth for pommel horse. Our team ranked fourth — three spots better than last year.

It was good enough for sponsors to approach the coaches.

At one point, Coach Bryan called me over to meet a guy from a clothing line who told me what he liked about my rings routine. He told _me._ As in, he didn’t only watch, he knew my name and paid attention and remembered what I did. Bryan exchanged information with the guy and discussed a meeting next week. _Next week!_ “I’ll call confirm the time as soon as I can reach his parents,” Coach Bryan said as he shook his hand.

The two of us watched the company representative wave and walk away.

Then we looked at each other, beaming.

“You did it, champ. This is what you’ve been waiting for,” he told me and looked at his watch. “Listen, we’ve got a bit of time before dinner and I hoped to catch a friend. Do you have something to do?”

I did.

But.

Change of plans.

There was no way was I going to mess this up right now.

I looked around the room for Joe and, when I didn’t see him anywhere, I went to the room as planned and took a shower. As soon as Joe got there, I’d tell him what was up. We’d postpone. No sweat. He would completely understand.

I was practically one big ball of vibration the whole time I was in the elevator and I’m pretty sure I bounced down the hallway. It took me three times to slide the key card in and out of the lock before I got it to work. Once I did, I made fast work of getting in and out of the shower. Right before I opened the bathroom door, I heard the heavy door that separated the room from the hallway close with a heavy _click_ followed by the metal _clunk_ of the bar latch _._

Joe was going to freak when I told him who I just met.

“Hey, man!” I whipped open the bathroom door with only a towel around my waist. Someone who _wasn’t Joe_ grabbed me hard by the arm, reeled me around so my face was against the wall and I felt a prick on the top part of my right ass cheek. “What the fuck!” I shrieked.

My brain kicked into gear. I ducked into an escape maneuver followed by a kick under my assailant’s feet to drop him. When I tried to get up, he held my feet. I levered into a handstand, twisted and used a scorpion kick to get him off me. As quick as I could, I scrambled to pry the bar towards me so that I could open the door.

The latch kept getting further and further away.

My arm got slower and slower and then slowly turned numb. By the time that happened, I could hardly feel my legs or my head or my anything else either.

My body unpeeled from the rest of me.

From behind me — and they must have been right behind me but they sounded like they might have been halfway across the room — this person said, “Just a little dab of Special K, my friend. I can tell you’re already relaxing. Look at that…you’re gonna love this.”

I knew that voice.

Fucking Nick.


	3. Chapter 3

The room was dark.

On my right, red numbers told me it was 6:55. Beyond the clock, the heavy curtains were surrounded by a thin box of bright light.

Waking up was the wrong term.

My body wasn’t numb anymore; it felt things. Soreness. Pain. Especially down —

_Fuck._

Instantly, I started crying and, in an effort to get away, I careened off the bed, a flailing awkward menace whose limbs couldn’t quite get the message about how they were supposed to move.

His words returned to me.

_You’re mine and you need to start acting like it. Got that?_

With a press of my finger, the light came on. The bed was stained and the red of that stain was the same red that dripped down my leg

_Fuck, fuck, fuck. What do I do?_

The room blurred as soon as another wave of reality hit me.

Joe never came.

Nick did.

The team left for dinner fifteen minutes ago.

They would return in an hour.

I shouldn’t be here.

_Think._

It was August. The sun was up and wouldn’t set for best part of two hours.

In my wallet, I had thirty-five bucks, ID, my medical card, and traveler’s checks that I wasn’t supposed to use unless it was an emergency.

Should I call the front desk?

No. I needed time to get away first.

Where would I go? Bryan was with Nick. If I needed to get away from Nick, I couldn’t call Bryan. If I called the front desk to get help, they would also call Nick. If I went to the hospital, Nick was the one who had all permission from my parents to take care of my medical needs. So that wouldn’t keep me away from him either.

A call to my parents from the room resulted in…nothing. They didn’t answer. I didn’t leave a message.

 _Mestre._ I should call him.

No. Pack first, get away, then call.

In the bathroom, I did my best to clean up by wiping down with wet wash cloths and stuffed them into a plastic bag.

 _Breathe._ Deep breaths got harder or easier depending on if I thought about what had already happened or what was going to happen next.

Clothes.

I doubled up my underwear and saw that wasn’t enough so I folded up a dry wash cloth and placed it longways along my crotch. There was only one cloth left and pocketed it. Quickly, I scanned the rest of the place, threw the rest of my stuff in my duffle bag, and with one last look behind me, left.

More words returned while I walked toward the elevators. _It only hurts the first time but I can already see how you love it._ Bile rose in my throat.

I needed a phone.

What was it with my parents that I was the only kid I knew without a fucking phone?

Slipping out the front door was easy. Getting a taxi was not. The restaurant they would be eating at was less than a mile down the block to the left. So I turned to the right. Then I walked briskly down one block and then another. I stood in front of one hotel and saw another across the street and down another block.

The one that was further was also fancier. They would want less fuss. They would help more quietly.

I crossed the street and squinted into the sun when I walked along those parts of the sidewalk not blocked by the shade of nearby buildings. There were no other pedestrians but plenty of people in cars that zipped in front of me into the oversized parking lots of glass offices, family restaurants, and gas stations.

The driveway of the hotel I sought was neatly landscaped with yuccas and other succulents that matched neatly with the uniform of the cap-wearing doormen. One of them nodded at me warily. I nodded back, then focused on the ground, and replayed in my head what it felt like to walk into the hotel I was actually registered at. Once inside, another guy in a uniform asked me, “How can I help you, sir? Are you checking in with us today?”

_I need help._

Nothing came out of my mouth.

The man stood there perplexed as I continued to attempt to make sounds. Finally, when I shook my head in failure and mimed that I needed a pen, he walked me to a desk and took out some fancy off-white paper with the hotel logo that was embossed in a shiny, electric blue along the top. On top of that, he placed a matching pen. He said, “I’ll be back in just a moment, sir.”

How was I going to do this? I couldn’t call _Mestre_ if I couldn’t speak.

A taxi then.

How would the driver know where I needed to go? I pulled out my medical card and patiently, slowly, politely started my note.

_I need to go to the emergency room. It has to be the hospital with the same name on my medical card. Can you help me find the address? Will I be able to get there by taxi if I have $…_

“Micah?”

Orange ponytail, blue eyes, big smile, ready to pounce until she looked over my shoulder and saw what I was writing.

“Are you okay?”

The tongue glued to the roof of my mouth became unstuck just enough to warble, “Something happened.”

There was sound this time.

Instant relief.

I didn’t know why it worked like that. If I was scared, stressed, worried, anxious — my voice stopped working. No. It was more than that. The person in front of me (depending on who it was) could also make it so that I couldn’t talk. Or could. It felt like I was locked in a room that not many people had a key to and the people that had those keys weren’t always the people that needed them.

My mom didn’t.

Neither did my dad.

Coach Bryan did.

Apparently, so did Rosalie Drummond.

“I think we need my parents,” she said. I followed her to the hotel bar and hung back before we reached the table where a woman with Rosalie’s hair sat with a tall blond man with Rosalie’s eyes. Across from them was a brunette woman bouncing a baby on her lap.

All four of them looked at me.

I backed into a post behind me, spooked, and turned straight into a guy who looked like Rosalie if she were bigger, hairier, and ten years older. I froze.

“Whoa, hey…you’re alright.” He glanced at the table and then back to me. “Are you Rosalie’s friend?”

I swallowed and nodded.

“Is that note for us?” he asked and waited for my approval before he slid it out my hand and read it. “My name is Patrick. I’m Rosalie’s brother,” he introduced himself slowly and continued to look in my eyes. “Did Rosalie tell you that I’m a police officer?”

I shook my head.

“I am. So is my mom. She’s one of those detective types that you see in those TV shows. I can help you or if you want, she can help you. Will you tell me what happened?”

The shake of my head was just perceptible, though I stayed right there by him. _No._

“Where’s your coach?”

My eyes flew open at the mention of him and I shook my head vehemently. _No!_

Patrick bent down to my height and rested his hands on top of his knees while he continued to ask me questions, “Are you hurt?”

Every question squeezed a different part of me. My throat, my eyes, my chest, my stomach. I looked away from him and Rosalie and the rest of them.

“Did your coach hurt you?”

I looked down at the carpet; my toe was on the intersection of where two ribbons of color — one in red, one in light blue —crossed over the background in royal blue.

_The second you tell someone about this, you are done with gymnastics. Got that, Micah? Done._

There was so much I couldn’t remember. Not solidly, not concretely. Mostly, I remembered drifting away. I was in front of the door one moment and then I was a balloon, floating up and around the room before disappearing through the window and into the sky. It was that and a handful of phrases that I didn’t know when I heard them or how they had lodged themselves into my brain to loop at will. What I knew — and was absolutely certain of — were the words, the sounds, the tone, the intent.

I felt sick and scared and confused about how quickly I went from having everything between having to choose between the thing I love the most and…me. Tears flooded my eyes and overflowed to run down my face and drop onto my hands that held the strap of my duffle bag, which was heavy and in the same spot on my shoulder as it was when I left the other hotel.

“Okay, let’s get you out of here. Will you give me your hotel key?”

I froze and whimpered, “Not going back there.”

“No. You aren’t going back there. I’m going to help sort a few things out. Do you have all your stuff in your bag?”

 _Yeah_. I nodded.

“Alright champ, let’s get you to the hospital. I just need a word with my family and then we’ll go.”

Patrick called me champ.

Just like Bryan did.

I hung onto that during the small flurry of activity that followed. Rosalie’s mom took my room key and asked me for the number of the room I stayed in before she rushed off. Rosalie’s dad told her she had to stay with him and her new nephew. Patrick kissed the woman holding the baby and when he came back lifted my duffle off my shoulder and told me that he would carry it. Rosalie watched me the whole time and waved goodbye with a promise to see me soon.

At the hospital, Patrick flashed his badge when he checked me in and when we were asked what I was being seen for, he leaned over and told her in a low, confidential tone, “We need a SANE.”

He and I were led to a private room and joined by a nurse in scrubs who questioned Patrick about why he was there. She reluctantly allowed him to stay as long as he remained on the other side of the privacy screen during the physical examination and remained quiet on her demand.

She spoke to me for a long time.

First it was about privacy and consent and how I could waive it or evoke it at any time. Next, she described the interview process and described with great care how normal and typical it is for a survivor (that’s what I was now) to be reluctant about sharing the truth because they feared retaliation.

“But the ones who stay silent, Micah, are the ones who suffer alone. I can tell you from personal experience, unfortunately, that protecting yourself or your family is done by speaking about what happened. Not by hiding it away. You can decide later not to pursue a criminal case. That’s fine. That’s your decision. But now is the time to get everything out — when it’s recent and you remember the most about what happened. If you’ll let me, I’d like to make sure we record everything possible so that nothing is forgotten. Okay?”

Then she asked me about _it._

I wasn’t going to say.

I really wasn’t.

I was there to get treated.

End of story.

But I found myself telling her everything.

I went all the way back to that photo session late last year, about how I felt when Nick started asking those questions, how he kept finding ways to touch me, and what Coach Bryan told me about not being alone with him and to speak up if I ever got a weird vibe again.

After that, I rattled off everything I could from coming out of the shower and how I never actually _saw_ Nick but because I knew his voice and his smell and his size and the way he phrased things, I knew it was him. I told her about where he was and plans for going home.

Joe was the one thing I didn’t tell her about. Not about messing around with him and not about what we had planned on doing. But I did tell her about Joe’s secret room and how I made him send me e-mails so that I knew he was okay even though he swore he was.

I even drew a map with all the details I could remember.

Just in case.

So what if we were here and not there.

Maybe this would be my only time to tell someone.

Maybe I just couldn’t stop.

Maybe I just wanted to do everything I could to cast doubt that the guy was one fraction of the guy he pretended to be.

Maybe because I no longer believed it wouldn’t happen to Joe.

If it hadn’t already.

I remembered what Joe wrote in one of his e-mails. _Micah, I would do anything for him. He saved my life._

Did he set me up?

The physical exam was next.

“Micah, I need you to stand on this paper mat and take your clothes off one piece at a time.” My shirt followed my shoes and socks into my bag. But when I took my jeans down, she paled. “You’re bleeding. Stay here.”

She was back with a doctor and another nurse who carried a set of sterilized equipment. I was jackknifed and given local anesthesia with a needle I wished I hadn’t seen. The doctor gave me sutures while the nurse and Patrick kept me from hyperventilating. “When you breathe, Micah, focus on the exhale. Count to make each one longer. The inhale will happen on its own. Come on,” said the nurse, “I’m going to count with you. One, two, three…”

_Four, five six…_

At some point, she had put my jeans, as well as the red-soaked underwear and washcloth, into a separate bag. Once the doctor was done stitching me up, all the sharps went into a special box. They went into another bag.

Then the physical exam resumed.

Patrick kept me talking from the other side of the screen. He asked about my brother and what it was like to have a sibling so close to my age. Then he asked me about his sister and how well I knew her; he liked the story about Iron Maiden. Apparently, it was his favorite band in college and though he’d outgrown them, Rosalie became a loyal fan.

It helped to be thinking of things like that while the nurse had me bent over to comb my hair and collect every loose piece that could belong to me. Or to someone else. It was even better when I stood up again and she combed my other hair with the same purpose. Where she didn’t comb me, she swabbed — inside and out. She took pictures and measurements and documented what I had to say about each mark.

There were more bags.

For the combs, the swabs, my clothes, the urine sample, the wash cloths in the plastic bag that I had stuffed into my duffle. When she had taken everything off me that she possibly could, she started to give things back to me.

Water.

Gauze.

Clothes.

A blanket.

Information.

On HIV. On STI’s. On crisis counseling. On my injury. On returning to my sport. On long-term care. On how to contact her in the future. On services and contacts and resources that I should take full advantage of. On whether to press charges. On how the evidence would be tested. On who I would have to contact if I wanted to know those results. On how she could be called to testify at court. On how being injured wasn’t the same thing as being damaged. On how sexual assault is not the same as having sex. On how none of it was my fault.

“Where’s your head at right now, Micah?”

I didn’t know. I was wired and tired and informed beyond belief but as far as thinking? No. I didn’t have a clue. “What happens now?” I asked. And when she tilted her head in confusion, I clarified, “Literally. I’m so tired. How do I get home?”

“Rest here while Officer Drummond and I talk outside.”

I saw the time on her watch when she passed me to leave the room. Five hours ago, I stood on a podium.

It felt like longer.

I closed my eyes and fell into a heavy sleep.

“Hey champ, wake up,” Patrick gently shook my arm. He looked worried. “I’ve got something I need to talk to you about.”

I sat up, flinched and rocked to one side to get comfortable. “What’s up?”

“They’ve picked someone up.”

“Wow, that was fast.”

“Yes. But it wasn’t Nick.”

“What? Who was it?”

“Bryan.”


	4. Chapter 4

“So you say the man we’ve arrested wasn’t the culprit,” stated the arresting officer who sat at the opposite side of the brushed metal table that was — aside from the matching metal chairs — the only furniture in the room. The walls would have been all white save the chunks of missing paint that revealed it’s previous color: mustard yellow. “The thing is, Micah, we have several witnesses, and each one of them is more credible than you.”

Severe. That’s the word that came to mind when I looked at him. He had a sharp, gray crew cut and hard hazel eyes and a deeply creases in his uniform that might have been forged by lasers. He was more machine than man, more military than police, and scary as fuck. I didn’t doubt that his wrinkles could kill me in my sleep. Why was he not in the midst of on-the-ground special operations in Baghdad instead of here with me?

“The guy you claim as your attacker has a solid alibi. Two of your teammates and one of their parents say they were with him the entire time.”

I shook my head.

“We have another eyewitness that placed Bryan Salter on your floor near the time you were attacked.”

_No. It wasn’t possible._

“Add in the fact that he’s already a registered sex offender.”

My eyebrows jumped up.

“Bet you didn’t know that, did you? Lewd Conduct in Public,” sneered the officer. “If you were my kid and I’d heard any of this, I wouldn’t let you within ten feet of the guy.”

None of this made sense. Coach Bryan has never done anything more than my dad or Kenny Walker. I’ve never gotten the creep vibe from him. Just the opposite. He’s been meticulous with me and super protective.

“You didn’t see your attacker, Micah. You were drugged, and that messes with your ability to comprehend what is happening to you.”

But if Coach Bryan wanted to do this, he had me alone a million and one times. He could have taken me to his house or even _my_ house. Why would he do this here?

And why _now?_ He was as excited as I was about reaching the stage where sponsors were coming to find us. Among other things, we could afford to pay him better. We could afford to get to the international competitions. He’d be able to get higher profile gymnasts to work with.

No. Even if I didn’t know it wasn’t Bryan, it made no sense for him to be accused.

The officer was still speaking. “There’s one other issue I’ve got with you, Micah. According to your own family, you sometimes have a problem telling the truth. So, if you happen to have some reason to want to protect this guy, I am going to have difficulty believing you when you tell me it wasn’t him.” His face was stoic as he sat there with his arms crossed high on his chest. “This arrest is a done deal. Now, I would appreciate it if you would start telling the truth so that another bad guy can be taken off the streets.”

Bryan wasn’t the guy.

He just wasn’t.

“Who is Nick’s alibi?” I squeaked.

The officer pinched the bottom of one page and lifted it to scan for details. “Tanner Collins, Petra Sidran and her son Joe Sidran.”

I’d never heard of Tanner Collins. 

“You may choose not to press charges. It’s no skin off my back whether you do or whether you don’t. I don’t need you on my side to go after him. I’ve already got the prosecuting attorney ready to go,” his statement was nonchalant. He shrugged to punctuate his thought. It didn’t matter what I said. It didn’t matter what I thought. It didn’t matter that I was the one this happened to.

“Nothing to add?” he asked.

What could I say?

I couldn’t even believe this was happening. It was so far from the truth that even if I could get another single word out of my mouth — which I couldn’t — it wouldn’t matter.

He slid a form in front of me and pointed to it. “That’s what you sign to press charges.”

I shook my head in despair. I wouldn’t. Not against Coach Bryan.

“Have it your way,” he said right before he picked up his file and left.

What now? Was I supposed to follow him? Why didn’t they let Patrick stay with me? Were they going to keep me here? Where was my mom? Was she even coming?

I put my arms on the table and put my head down on my arms and I stayed there until there was a knock on the door. It was a uniformed police officer followed my dad and Grandma Rebecca, who swept into the room with an effusive, “Love baby!” and rushed over to put her arms around me.

I cringed at her touch

“How could you let this happen to yourself? Let me see you. Are you hurt?” My grandmother pinched my chin and scanned my face as if she could possibly assess the real injury by doing so. She tsked and lamented, “I thought we were done with all of this business.”

Dad stayed close to the door as if by continuing to prop it open with his body would hasten our exit. I suppose it did. He stood back as I passed him and followed the officer past a row of interview rooms, into an open cubicle space, and over to a desk where another form was waiting to be signed, this time by dad, which he did without further ado.

Once in the car, he asked his mom, “Are you still okay with us driving back tonight? If we get too tired, we’ll find a place to stop on the way.” He hadn’t yet said one word to me. Not _hello_. Or _are you okay?_ Or anything.

Grandma responded, “Whatever you want, Davey. If you need me to, I can drive or we can get coffee.”

We wordlessly left the police station parking lot and drove along the main road until it merged onto the interstate. The big lights of the malls and supermarkets transitioned into what I called the breaks and chains. These were the places where there would be a long section of highway next to a long stretch of desert that was broken up into small centers of activity where every business was a chain of some sort: fast-food joint, diner, truck stop, gas station, or motel.

Beyond the breaks and chains were the tumbleweeds. These were the minute centers of activity where a single building housed a motel with an attached diner and a gas station that rarely came with more than two pumps. During the last several hours of the journey, the interstate would weave in and out of civilization. Then we’d be home.

If we were lucky, if we didn’t have to stop, we might get home by eight in the morning. Neither Dad and Grandma Rebecca seemed particularly energetic and I couldn’t drive even if I had my permit (which I didn’t). Whether luck was on our side or not, it was going to be a long ass journey. I propped my duffle bag upright and looped my arms through its straps to lean as sideways as I could while remaining strapped in.

I bet Nick was happy as a clam sleeping comfortably in the hotel while Bryan…

_This was so unfair._

How is it okay that I was coming home when Bryan was locked up? I didn’t even know where he was because they wouldn’t let me see him. Who did he call to help him? He got a phone call. Or did he? I didn’t know any of this stuff.

At home, there would at least be one or two people I could talk to.

Like, Kenny Walker.

He knew Bryan and he knew Bryan would never do that stuff he was being accused of. Especially if I told him my side of the story.

And _Mestre_.

If _Mestre_ could help people like Rory Evans and  Júnior Aguirre, who really did the stuff they were accused of, maybe he can help me figure out what to do in order to help Bryan, who didn’t. Or apparently, he did have a past. Even so, he definitely didn't do this.

Or maybe Dr. Perlman?

I didn’t know.

Grandma Rebecca and Dad continued to talk between themselves. As long as it was background noise, it was kind of nice. Mostly, I couldn’t hear what they said. Then again, I didn’t care.

Mostly.

I pressed my index finger against the flap of my ear, which turned the sound of their bullshit into the whooshing that comes from listening to a nautilus and pretending to hear the sea. I liked the juxtaposition it made with traveling under the blanket of stars that got brighter and more distinct as we drove into the night.

Being in the sea (even a pretend one) and gazing at the sky was quite possibly one of the most perfect combinations ever. Each of then was so much bigger than me that I no longer mattered. But, unlike the way in which I didn’t matter at the police station, this was a way not mattering that I craved. I wasn’t being run over; it was popping out of existence. The difference between the two was the difference between being an obstacle — big enough to be in the way, small enough to be moved — and being so small as to be rendered untouchable.

This was how I imagined it felt to be invincible.

Next thing I knew, a light came on inside the car. I didn’t even realize we had pulled off the freeway. Grandma and I sat in silence until dad returned, opened the door and said, “Would you believe it? They have a room with three beds.”

The key in his hand was old school and had a saguaro cactus shaped tag topped with eyes, a big smile, a cowboy hat, and a circle with the number seventeen where there might have otherwise been a belly button.

We stumbled into the room, which was huge and had tile countertops and a bathroom the same pink as calamine lotion. Dad took the bed closest to the door and Grandma took the one in a secret hidden room at the back. That left me with the one in the middle; it was right next to the bathroom and in front of the television set.

I slept on my side and watched Dad’s silhouette rise and fall against the light behind the curtain. His breath deepened but he wasn’t asleep yet.

“Dad?”

“Ngh,” he grunted.

“How come you came to get me and not mom?”

“Your brother’s sick.”

I knew he had a sore throat but mom said it was just a summer cold or something. _Man flu_ , she called it and smiled, “You two are growing up too fast.”

“He’s got mono,” dad mumbled into his pillow. “Go to sleep, Micah. I’ll tell you more tomorrow.”

The bed was a board on springs covered with scratchy, stiff sheets and a weightless quilted comforter that was cold and stuffy at the same time. I piled the pillows along the back of me.

That didn’t work.

I turned over to hug one pillow with my arms and the other one with my legs.

That didn’t work either.

Neither did huddling under the covers in the middle of the bed. Nor did sleeping on the floor against the shared wall where my grandmother slept on the other side.

I couldn’t sleep.

Finally, I tried placing myself along the mounted plank of wood that acted as a headboard. The two pillows were in front of me and my feet rested on the plasterboard nightstand at the far side of the bed.

Instead of counting sheep, I went through all the ways I could strike out at someone who snuck up on me while I slept. I gripped saguaro cactus key chain so that hotel room key stuck out between my second and third fingers. My tennis shoes were positioned along the bed, ready to trip anyone who got close. My legs were coiled. The pillow by my head was propped so that I could see from underneath it and the person on the other side wouldn’t realize it until it was too late.

My thoughts became more surreal as the room itself drifted away. Soon, I imagined I was covered in the silk of Spiderman’s web, safe and impenetrable. The silk was fitted with sensors that would trigger an emergency fleet of my personal army to come running should I be disturbed at any time. Patrick was there and so was _Mestre._ We had scheduled to meet in order to discuss our strategy for breaking Bryan out of captivity. Once he was free, we would hide him and keep him from getting wrongfully recaptured. My dreams ofrighteousness and of serving justice for anyone who should have been believed but wasn’t continued.

Though almost everything was forgotten with a shrill noise. Dad’s Nokia woke me up with that same tune that everybody with the same phone seemed to have. “Susie,” he answered, “calm down. What’s happened?”

His covers rustled as he shifted out of them and I watched him walk to the TV from the tunnel I made under my pillow. He picked up the remote and turned it on, flipping through Sponge Bob, a talk-show with people who yelled over one another, and a Mexican soap opera. He stopped at a news channel and sat at the foot of my bed.

I sat up to watch video footage of people in dark windbreakers with FBI printed on the back hauling out computer equipment out of a big cement building and into enormous vans. A red banner scrolled across the bottom of the screen with Breaking News: FBI Raid Breaks Up Child Pornography Ring. Dad spoke into the phone, “Found it.”

A newscaster spoke over the video.

_The FBI had already been monitoring Tanner Collins in relation to the death of twelve-year-old Tanya Moore. They have also arrested former Olympic gymnast Nick Parker and general contractor Don Meadows._

The TV showed video of a man with his face down being taken away in handcuffs. Coach Nick was right behind him; he also had his hands behind him and was being ushered off camera by another officer. The camera panned out to show the lobby of the hotel I stayed in last night. In the background, there was a familiar looking woman in an FBI jacket that pointed at some guys and hollered instructions.

_The raid across three homes and a gymnastics center in California was carried out late last night by the FBI based on information that arose from what initially appeared to be an unrelated attack on a minor. A passerby told us they overheard agents describing how electronic recording equipment along with a box of ketamine and flunitrazepam have been recovered. The two drugs in question are commonly known as date rape drugs._

Another video clip was shown of Nick’s house surrounded by yellow tape and more agents hauling boxes away. The noise must have woken my grandmother. She opened the door, saw the TV, and asked my dad, “What’s happening”

Dad hushed her.

_Neighbors in the vicinity had no idea what was going on._

The camera turned to a pudgy, middle-aged guy in a striped polo shirt and baseball cap who alternated between looking at the camera and looking behind him at the agents crossing Nick’s lawn.

_“No, I don’t believe it. Nick and Jeannie are great neighbors and great people. They’re the ones who organized the community crime watch and they do a whole lot to support under-funded sports teams. There’s no one I’d trust more to watch my kids. When everything comes out in the wash, it’ll be clear that this was all some big mistake.”_

The local newscaster wrapped up his part of the segment with _Wendy, back to you._

Wendy Fitzsimmons was at the news desk in a lavender suit and looked somberly into the camera as she said _The FBI are rumored to be making similar sweeps with associates of Mr. Collins and have announced a press conference scheduled this afternoon at four o’clock. More information will be forthcoming from our own news studios as soon as it is available._

“Yeah, I’m here,” dad spoke again into the phone. Then there was a pause. “He’s watching it, too.” He turned to look at me, “I don’t know. Why don’t you talk to him?” Dad handed me the phone. “It’s your mom.”

“Hi.”

I was unprepared for her barrage of questions. “Did they make films of you? How long as this been going on? How much was Bryan involved? What do you know about this? Why didn’t you say anything?…”

She was still going on when I handed the phone back to dad. I shook my head and complained, “I can’t.”

He nodded and took the phone back.

I had just put my head back under the pillow when he said, “Suz, this has been a big shock for all of us. We’ll talk more when we get home.”

Grandma Rebecca looked at my dad, who held his face in his hands, and then back at me with her upper lip curled on one side and her eyebrows pressed together. “I just don’t understand how you can be involved in something like this? Don’t you understand how badly you are hurting your father?”

Dad interrupted her, “Mom. Stop.”

She didn’t, “This mess you got yourself into, love baby. You are too young to be having sex and…what, now you’re making pornos? You aren’t even eighteen for god’s sake. You’re still living under your father’s roof and this is how you bring shame to him?”

“Mom, cut it out.”

“Davey, you don’t deserve this. I’m so glad you left that woman but I don’t know what you’re going to do about your oldest…he needs help.”

I hated her.

I hated her with a heat and a rage that I didn’t know I had in me. She took every single worst fear I had, vocalized them and then twisted it to somehow make it worse.

“Well, Micah,” she insisted, “Say something. At the very least, you should apologize to your father.”

I took a deep breath and couldn’t believe it when I was actually speaking — without yelling, without stuttering, without freezing. These words were delivered ice cold.

“I don’t know what it is you think I’ve done to deserve anything that has happened to me but I do know that I don’t care. I’m done with you.”

“Micah,” dad softly admonished through haunted eyes and pallid skin. I felt like I’d broken him. But I couldn’t take it back. “I understand you’re upset but that’s neither fair nor respectful to your grandmother.”

Fair.

Respectful.

She implied that I was actively involved in the shit going down. Not only that, I invited it. I wanted it. I was a slut for it.

And the thing was, it didn’t surprise me. Not the part that she thought it, or said it, or expected that I would somehow agree to her implications, take them on and feel guilty for the role I played. For the sake of my father.

For the guy who wasn’t even around anymore.

For the guy who couldn’t understand what was important to me if he was stabbed with it.

For the guy who drove eight hours to get me only to say not a single fucking word about why he had to do it.

Fuck them both.

**Author's Note:**

> There is nothing lighthearted or entertaining about child abuse, sexual abuse, predatory behavior, domestic violence, bullying, or mental health issues, nor should they be sensationalized. Their role in this story is quite specific in showing how violence can take many forms, many of which aren't acknowledged. Unfortunately, once a person identifies as a victim, they may fall into being a victim in other ways. Not because the person has "asked for it" -- because, no -- but because predators are very good at finding those who feel weak, dejected, abused, unvalued, and manipulating them into unhealthy situations.
> 
> I make no claims to be an expert on these topics, nor am I a professional counselor. If you know or suspect anyone who may be a victim, here are some resources below that may be helpful.
> 
> Child Abuse Hotline  
> Phone: 1-800-4-A-Child   
> Website: https://www.childhelp.org/hotline/
> 
> Stop Bullying Website: https://www.stopbullying.gov/get-help-now/
> 
> National Alliance on Mental Illness  
> Phone: 1-800-950-NAMI (6264)  
> Website: http://www.nami.org/Find-Support/NAMI-HelpLine
> 
> National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN)  
> Phone: 1-800-656-4673  
> Website: https://www.rainn.org/index.php


End file.
